
PEACE depends on the Great Powers. But the Great Powers are all enigmas. And who will dare to predict the future of an enigma?
Let us take them one by one—the five Great Powers of the United Nations Security Council. Who can say how many decades or generations China will require to achieve stable national government and the high degree of industrialization necessary actually to make her a Great Power? What can one predict of France's future, of her recovery of inner stability and the rebuilding, as after 1870, of her power in the "French Union" of Greater France? Russia
Source URL: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-kingdom/1945-07-01/british-commonwealth-great-power